@Gaminic: Your right in that there was an article where someone proposed that as a possible explanation, and the results of their calculations were somewhat in line with what they should be. However it was far from accepted as the reason they were getting these results.

@ireni: As for that article, it doesn't even seem to explain anything as far as I can see. Unless I'm missing something big (and please let me know if I am) but I actually don't even understand why this was published. Here are the first sentence from the wiki articles on cherenkov radiation and neutrino respectively:
"Cherenkov radiation (also spelled Cerenkov or Čerenkov) is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium."

"A neutrino (English pronunciation: /njuːˈtriːnoʊ/, Italian pronunciation: [neuˈtriːno]) is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle[1] with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass."

In that cause what would make them think that it would give off anything, never mind electrons and positrons especially because a neutrino is in no way made up of either of these things? Even if any of it did make sense, neutrinos being able to go faster than the speed of light would surely change so much, that to use pre-existing evidence like this simply couldn't be trusted.

All that said, I'm not saying that I think the neutrinos are going faster than the speed of light (although it sure would be interesting if they were), I would like to see a counter argument to the relativity one that Gaminic is talking about. Also this is probably stupid to even say but in the image in this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15830844 it seems very obvious, but I've heard of them measuring the distance over land, but I've never heard anything about anyone calculating what distance that would make it through the earth. I'm sure it just hasn't been said because it is so obvious, but if that is somehow something over looked, I want you all to know that I said it first.

Well, this function
f(x)=sqrt((sin(x/40075.017*2*pi)*6378.1)^2+((1-cos(x/40075.017*2*pi))*6378.1)^2)
converts kilometers over the surface into kilometers through the ground, assuming a spherical Earth.
f(732.406586)=732 km (accurate up to 1 mm, not considering inaccuracies in the base data), and 732.406586/f(732.406586)=1.000555444886038. On the other hand, 0.00240006/0.0024=1.000025, so if my data is accurate enough, the scientists thinking the particles went over the surface when in fact they went over the ground would have produced a difference in speed over twenty times larger.

helios (9297) Nov 22, 2011 at 6:07am Wouldn’t genuine knowledge require that he knows what he is, some characteristic of what he is? I don't agree. It'd be more knowledge, indeed, but not more genuine than knowing whether he is. Just like knowing whether "there exists x in S such that P(x)" and knowing x are different degrees of equally valid knowledge. Is he, for instance, in vivo or in machina? Any programmer will tell you they don't believe there's a difference beyond artificial distinctions. And with all your thinking that leads you to knowing that you are, it doesn’t mean knowing anything, really…even that you are real since, of course, just by you thinking them doesn’t guarantee that your thoughts are even your own. I question the ontological status of a perfectly passive observer lacking both internal state and processes to modify it. Even ideal programs in Turing machines exist to a higher degree than that. On the other hand, an observer complex enough to have state and processes does exist to a meaningful degree. With respect to its supposed thoughts, it would be at the same level as an animal lacking self-awareness (say, a cat) with respect to the world. I'm okay with being a cat. I can't get over the assumption that hypercomputation (specifically the kind that allows running infinite instructions in finite time) is logically possible to take the simulation argument seriously.

@helios

You and I might disagree on the epistemological definition of knowledge. But before I go further, I’m asking you to spare me the propositional/syllogistic/formal logic notation. I did my time in philosophy, ethics, and logics classes, but I don’t recall offhand all the rules of the symbols systems.

Despite my lack of recall from the philosophy classes, I don’t see where your statement, “There exists x in S such that P(x),” means anything. What does it mean? My brain cross-wires it to set theory, where I’m thinking you have to have something like x|{x=value or trait set}. And Jeez! I just tried looking something up about your statement, and I had forgotten I had learned so much stuff and that whole different symbol set. (Refresher for me: the backwards ‘E’ means “there exists”, btw. And ‘^’ means “all” instead of exponentiating something.) Okay, but I surmise that your statement means, “There exists an x as an element of S such that x has the property P.” I still say x at least has to be delineated first (such as {x = west of y}) before you can begin to know anything about x or S. An undefined set could be crazy, something like x|{x = y / 0}.

Do you believe that knowledge is only known in context? For instance, say I hold up a sheet of paper with what is apparently a large black square. Do you know, before any manipulations on the black square, that the letter ‘j’ is contained within the black square (such as by removing all “non-j” pixels? You can extrapolate from that scenario to something like, “Do you know that my entire Python programming manual is contained within the black square?” I think it’s safe to equate “context” with “circumstance”, btw. What’s your stance on a priori and a posteriori knowledge-wise?

You claim that any programmer will tell me that the distinction between an organic sentient being and an inorganic (sentient as well?) thing, in vivo v. in machina, is purely artificial. Really? What would be the equivalent of neurogenesis or hepatic regeneration within a machine? Do the most sophisticated machines have genuine opinions and feelings gained from their experiences? What kind of identity (not 1 = (0 + 1), but self-proclaimed “I am _ _ _ _”) would a machine have? It doesn’t matter how it gets into an entity’s environment for consumption and metabolism/processing/reorganization, in other words?

You asserted something I think is outrageous. With your cat example, you actually have argued that a self-unaware existent can possess knowledge! Are you serious?

Get this with your cat argument: You concede that a cat is lacking self-awareness. (That may or may not be a fact, but it’s your stated concession/proposition, nonetheless.) That means a cat could not form an identity of itself separate from its environment. In other words, that means a cat could not have a cognitive level to discern between himself and not-himself; a cat, according to you, could not know it exists as a discrete entity. That means a cat could not objectify (“subjectify”) or conceptualize itself as “I” in the first place. So, if your cat thought something, according to your own statements, then the cat, lacking self-awareness, could not be the agent of its own thoughts.

A cat, not knowing it is an “I” apart from all-that-is, couldn’t be a knower. A cat couldn’t formulate itself as a subject, much less say/think/meow, “I know this or that.” This is according to you, yet you still say that a cat can know, at the very least, that it exists. (It thinks, therefore it knows it is, to restate the Descartes quote.) Really?

Care to educate me or to try again or to clearly define your terms or to concede? C’mon, man! That cat thing was way out.

Btw, running infinite instructions in finite time/space is acceptable to the point of being literally flatly mundane in many various fields of mathematics. For instance, the Planck length is used all the time in various computations. (Of course, remember, that “infinite” is most technically a direction, so in 2-D it’s [negative infinity… < - - - - - > zero < - - - - - > …infinity].) And what does the Planck length look like from one perspective? It looks like zero length, a point at best (“like” != “is”, I know). Or say you plot a particle’s trajectory, employing the h with a sine wave function. Instead of loop-de-loop, it’s going to look like a straight line. That’s because at the Planck scale, quantum indeterminacy is basically an absolute, which gives rise to the paradox that the absolute is totally conditional. (I’m only talking basic trigonometry here and leaving out non-Euclidean geometries and higher maths.) So, what you have with the Planck length is, for all practical purposes, the paradox of infinite frequency with zero wavelength. And then you can marvel at the Planck time, which is (Planck length) / (speed of light). Then remember the mind-blower is that “stuff happened” below the Plancks, before time and space themselves unfurled. Then for a full-on logical meltdown, consider the credence of all those theorists’ claims, which say that not all the worlds that came to be, which exist concurrently with all other worlds, express the dimensions of time and/or space. In other words, there is a time for timelessness and a space for nothingness. Creeps me out!

These epistemological queries are spot-on for knowing the doings of various neutrinos and such. The first question should be to reconcile how an entity defined as having mass (neutrinos of all varieties) is less constrained (by forces or fields) than an entity defined as having no mass (photons). I think a lot of physicists are actually your aforementioned cats.

Well, this function f(x)=sqrt((sin(x/40075.017*2*pi)*6378.1)^2+((1-cos(x/40075.017*2*pi))*6378.1)^2) converts kilometers over the surface into kilometers through the ground, assuming a spherical Earth. f(732.406586)=732 km (accurate up to 1 mm, not considering inaccuracies in the base data), and 732.406586/f(732.406586)=1.000555444886038. On the other hand, 0.00240006/0.0024=1.000025, so if my data is accurate enough, the scientists thinking the particles went over the surface when in fact they went over the ground would have produced a difference in speed over twenty times larger.

Motion parallax and all that...

Charles Caleb Colton wrote:
“A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.”

But before I go further, I’m asking you to spare me the propositional/syllogistic/formal logic notation. I did my time in philosophy, ethics, and logics classes, but I don’t recall offhand all the rules of the symbols systems.

I merely used that notation because it conveyed what I meant most succinctly.

‘^’ means “all” instead of exponentiating something.

It's conjunction. "For all" is an upside down A.

I still say x at least has to be delineated first (such as {x = west of y}) before you can begin to know anything about x or S

Consider this: you have a function that you know has at least one zero inside an interval (because of Bolzano or whatever), but the function is too complex to know the exact x such that f(x)=0. Thus, you know that x exists, and perhaps you even know a small area where it exists, but you don't know who it is.

For instance, say I hold up a sheet of paper with what is apparently a large black square. Do you know, before any manipulations on the black square, that the letter ‘j’ is contained within the black square (such as by removing all “non-j” pixels?

I don't think this is a good analogy of knowledge and information. The "j" pixel configuration has a lot more entropy than the "square" configuration, thus a so-called transformation would be introducing information into the system.

What’s your stance on a priori and a posteriori knowledge-wise?

To be honest, I never quite understood these terms when they explained them to us in Epistemology, or when I tried to look them up on my own.

What would be the equivalent of neurogenesis or hepatic regeneration within a machine?

I fail to see how this would be relevant. We're talking about awareness, not physiological processes.

Do the most sophisticated machines have genuine opinions and feelings gained from their experiences?

Well, a machine sophisticated enough to wonder whether it exists probably would.

It doesn’t matter how it gets into an entity’s environment for consumption and metabolism/processing/reorganization, in other words?

What do you mean?

A cat couldn’t formulate itself as a subject, much less say/think/meow, “I know this or that.”

"I know this" is a meta-statement, pertaining to the context of "this". Knowledge in the cat's mind would not be stated this way. In fact, not even your knowledge is stated this way (only your meta-knowledge. Or metadata, if you will). "The sky is blue" and "I know that the sky is blue" are two different statements. A thinker lacking self-awareness would not be capable of knowing the latter, precisely for the reasons you've mentioned, but would be capable of knowing the former.

[Planck]

I have no idea what you just said, but hypercomputation of this kind is considered logically, not physically, impossible. If you were to run this program in a hypercomputer:
what would be the value of a at the end? What is lim(n->inf,(-1)^n)?